Making Yourself Known on the Hypertext Superhighway

The great equalizing factor about the internet is that anybody can, for literally no cost whatsoever, start up a website. Whether your aim is to inform, to sell, or just to express yourself, all it takes is a few minutes and you’re off and running. Getting started is the easy part, whether the content is original material or a site summarizing the interests of a group, getting set up is easy.

Here Comes the Hard Part

The hard part is in getting noticed within the maelstrom that is the internet. There are underlying costs to everything, and in braving this new frontier either you are provider or a consumer. If you’re not paying for the sites you have, then somebody else is making money off you and your work. Even free sites such as the common blog platforms and Youtube are going to saddle your content with advertising if you aren’t paying them up front for the use of their servers.

If you are planning on maintaining a presence in electronic space on the internet, then knowing what you’re up against is half the battle. Since there are going to be links on your web pages anyhow, why not have them be your links pointing to information you are comfortable linking to? Often, with some small amount of planning, you will be able to arrange things such that you will be generating the money needed to cover the costs of a website hosting service, allowing the presentation of your sites without the need for third party or unknown backlinks to other businesses websites.

Just like in the tangible world around us, the world of the internet and more specifically the websites that compose the internet are primarily about presentation and first impressions. A universal constant is that, if a website can’t snare the attention of a potential visitor in the first three seconds or so, then they’re going to click away to another site. Those first few moments are critical if you are hoping to do anything more with your site than simply upload information of interest to you and a handful of your friends. Visual impact of the content is the key factor here, and if the content is not relevant and current, or the visual aspect is too busy or just unappealing, then the site visitor will click away.

After you have established a significant presence online with a presentable and hopefully impressive or at least persuasive website or domain, then the game changes; it becomes much more about networking with other like minded and supportive businesses or portals that will be able to drive traffic to your site through inbound links.

What’s Your Site’s Purpose?

If the only purpose is to express yourself, then maximizing web traffic is probably not the most important consideration you will have. Generating quality content, often artistic in nature is a fine and noble pursuit, but the concept of page ranking is likely somewhat toward the bottom of the radar when it comes to the goals you had in mind when starting out in establishing a presence on the internet.

If, unlike many vanity websites, private forums or personal blogs, the aim of having a website was to generate leads, sales or just traffic for the purpose of creating an income stream, then targeted, quality traffic is the aim of the game. Getting significant numbers of relevant and interested individuals to your site for the purpose of either buying or even to just click through the advertising links is what it is all about.

How Do You Drive Traffic to your Money Site?

When the main purpose of a website is to make money then it will have to do so in one of two ways:

1- The most obvious manner of generating income from a website is when the site offers a product, and is essentially a sales portal, in which case traffic is king and backlinks are the paramount concern, because the more high quality inbound traffic your site receives, the better the odds of actually generating leads and selling materials.

2- The second most obvious manner of generating income is that being offered by Google, in their Adsense program, where your site is the content holder and income is made of advertising displayed to those visitors who come for the purpose of viewing your content. A prime example of this is a web-comic hosting portal where people visit to read the comics and are presented with advertising that will likely appeal to them, as their topic will be based on the main topic of the site.

What You Need to Remember

Regardless of the income model your site is depending on, however, the most obvious point to make is that content is king. With high quality content and an appealing visual presentation generating quality inbound links and hosting valuable outbound links that will generate even more quality website traffic is the only surefire way to establish a permanent presence on this impermanent medium made of photons and dreams.